It wasn't just the drama shows. There was a program for fanners just before dawn that gave them a weather forecast and advice on crops and livestock. The same program also gave the prices that were being paid in Bangkok for rice and eggs and meat, all the products that earned the village its money. With that information, they'd been able to make the merchant who bought their crops pay the village farmers a much better price for their produce.
So the television was made to work for an hour in the morning for the farmers and for another hour in the evening so the women could watch their drama and the men the news. That was another astonishing thing. There was a world out there, different countries, different people and so much was happening. The national news was on now, followed by the world news. The first international item was from Australia. Everybody in the hut chorused “G'Day Nudge”. Nudge had been the Australian who had brought some young water buffalo to replace the one killed during the night of the attack. He'd stayed for a few days to get the animals established and taught people a few words of English. Now, whenever Australia was on the news, everybody would greet him, as if the box would take their picture to him.
Fighting, a lot of it. From a place called Russia. Phong Nguyen watched with the eyes of a professional. This wasn't insurgency, this was regular war. And, by what these films showed, this one was a bloodbath. Grim, he could see the steel tanks forcing their way forward through what appeared to be a heavily-fortified position. Apparently the Russians, had done something quite remarkable and now some sort of great battle was expected. If the great battle was expected, what was this? He noted a lot of the Tahan Pran were watching with the same interested professionalism. They were coming on well.
They'd stopped being a defensive force now and were taking the battle to the Chipanese over the border. Their main attack defeated, the Chipanese had started sniping at villagers while they worked. A couple of villagers had been hit, none killed mercifully, so Phong Nguyen had taken some of the most skilled Tahan Pran volunteers out and set up an ambush. They'd picked up a sniper and left his head on a stake as warning.
From then on, the patrols and ambushes had become more ambitious. The villagers had learned they couldn't just sit behind barbed wire; they had to control the countryside around them. So they'd started patrolling and sending out night ambush groups. Then some Army specialists had come and given a little expert advice. Now the village was becoming a center for offensive operations against the Chipanese insurgents in Burma next door.
It was becoming a center in another way as well. About a third of the people in the room were from surrounding villages, come to enjoy the electric light and marvel at the wonder of the television set. They would go back home tonight and ask why it was that their village couldn't have such things. And the answer would be that if they supported the government as bravely as Ban Rom Phuoc had, they would have them. Loyalty and bravery were virtues and virtues were rewarded.
There was another incentive as well. Some of the visitors were men who'd come here hoping to catch a girl they could take home as a wife, But many of the girls here wore the black overalls of the Tahan Pran and carried their AKs slung over their shoulders. Their attitude was simple. If their suitor was not Tahan Pran, he was wasting his time. The hopeful suitors had been given an unambiguous message,
“Go home, boy. If you wish me consider you a man, you must prove it. Join the Tahan Pran.” It was the same for visiting women, hoping to catch husbands they saw that eligible men looked first to the Tahan Pran women when courting.
That was reasonable, for it was the wife's duty to protect the family home - and what better way was there to prove they could do that than to join the militia? And so other villages were forming their own militia units - and when they did so, they committed themselves to the government. It was a classic insurgency but turned on its head, the techniques used to subvert and bring down a government instead serving to support and defend it.
The television had a picture of the Bangkok skyline - that meant a Government message coming. The spokesman was a young man who gave out a grave warning to the villagers. There were men around who were going to villages, offering to give young women well-paid jobs in the city. But they were a fraud for the women would be taken to Chipan to act as comfort women for Chipanese soldiers. Any women who went with those men would not be seen again. So if such men come to your village, seize them and hand them over to the Authorities for punishment. And send your Tahan Pran to other villages that cannot hear this warning, tell them too of this danger. And that was another thing that was happening, the village militias were becoming a communication system, spreading word and messages through the countryside.
He felt a touch on his arm, it was Lin bringing him a bowl of her Pad Thai noodles. He thanked her gracefully and started in on his dinner, feeling the other men in the room envy him. He and Lin were accepted as a couple now, it was assumed they would soon be married. And that would mean nobody else would get to try her superb Pad Thai.
Later that evening he was taking a patrol out, the Tahan Pran had been asked if they could take a Chipanese insurgent prisoner and bring him in alive. It was the sort of thing the Tahan Pran did well, they knew the area so intimately, in the ways no regular army could, that they could find the insurgents no matter how well they'd thought they'd hidden themselves. He'd be back by dawn, just in time to check the prices on eggs and chickens.
Flag Bridge, HIJMS Musashi, South China Sea
Armed forces never changed. Their operating principles had remained constant for centuries. Hurry up and wait then get the job done by yesterday. After months of swinging around their anchors, getting one set of movement orders after another issued then cancelled, they'd suddenly got the word, make maximum speed for Burma and screen the transport group that carried the Special Naval Landing Force. Now, his bows were heaving and his ships had bones between their teeth as they hurried to make up lost time.
It was raining, quite badly as it happened but the visibility was still good enough to see the rest of his task group around him. Behind was the Yamato, and there were two cruisers, one on each flank. Tone and Chikuma. Old ships now but they had their sterns cleared for aircraft operations. Once they had carried floatplanes, now Kayaba Ka-5 ASW helicopters. Japan had been the first country ever to deploy ASW helicopters, Soriva remembered the little K.a-1 with affection, and it was one of the few areas where Japan's Navy was still supreme.
Good question he asked himself, how could the K.a-5s cope with the American's new nuclear-powered submarines? He'd heard their latest boats, the Skipjacks, could do 35 knots underwater and hold that speed for months if necessary. If true, that was a terrifying threat. Down there, underwater, the submarines wouldn't be affected by weather, they could run at full speed undisturbed. In the old days, keeping speed high was a sure defense against submarine attack. The slow boats would probably be in the wrong position to launch and, even if they were in luck, they got one shot and no more.
But if the rumors about the Skipjack were true, then they had more than seven knots on his battleships. That made them deadly threats. They could run ahead, get a firing position, shoot, then run again and reload. In fact, they could simply outrun the destroyers, in this weather none of his ships could get close to 35 knots.
That was a scaring thought; his four destroyers were virtually useless against such submarines. In truth, they'd be hard-pushed to deal with a diesel-electric submarine. They were the Akitsuki class, built as anti-aircraft destroyers in the 1940s. They'd been good ships for their day with four twin high-velocity 100 millimeter guns and four torpedo tubes. Now, though, their guns were virtually useless against aircraft. The destroyers screening the transport group were from a different class, Kageros, but were equally old and their capabilities equally dubious. They'd been rebuilt as submarine hunters but the changes were minimal, a turret and four torpedo tubes removed, depth charge throwers added.